Forrest Gump Psychological Analysis Essay

A Psychological Analysis of Forrest Gump.
The movie Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks) tells a story of a simple man and his journey through life. Forrest Gump’s story takes place during a time of historical significance in our country, The United States of America. His story began in the 1950’s, and ran through the 1970’s. This was a period in our country where morality, and equality, had come to be questioned for the first time since our country broke away from its European roots, and winning its independence on July 04, 1776. The American culture and its society would be changed forever over this twenty to thirty-year course. Forrest Gump is very simple-minded man who lives his life by a set of values forever instilled in him by his mother, Ms. Gump. In many ways the preoperational stage given to us by Jean Piaget applies very strongly to the movie Forrest Gump, for example when he started playing football, and joined the Vietnam War. The Cognitive

The movie begins when Forrest Gump is most likely between the ages of seven to nine years old, and because of his abnormally low IQ and slight mental retardation. We were able to watch him progress through the final three stages of Jean Piaget’s theories. Piaget described the Preoperational stage as typically taking place between the ages of two through six, or even seven years old. This stage is where the child learns to use language, but doesn’t fully understand how to use logic and the meaning of what is said. This stage is also marked by egocentrism, in which a child is unable to think of something from someone else’s perspective. Forrest Gump will often times will quote sayings that his mother crafted, and used to explain the challenges facing him from the critical judgement of others. Such sayings used were; “stupid is as stupid does.” and “You have to do the best with what God gave